Independent Judgment and War Fighting

Manstein admitted that with a leader like Hitler, it was impossible to win the war. Hitler started too many wars on too many fronts and his biggest mistake was the war against the Soviet Union. Manstein felt that after the fall of France it would have been possible to successfully invade Great Britain, though he was not in a position to get Hitler to adopt this strategy. Manstein made the point that from the German General Staff down to non-commissioned officers, the strength of the German army was the ability of commanding officers to make their own decisions on tactics and immediate objectives. This idea of the personal initiative of the German soldier is quite different from the commonplace stereotype of the obedient German under Hitler.

Manstein showed this trait of innovation with his plan to introduce a large German tank force through the...